


All is order and beauty, luxury, peace, and pleasure

by acaramelmacchiato



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ants, Booby!Marius, Les Amies des Fourmis, Marius Is Literally A Seabird, Multi, genderbent ants, lots o fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a pile of miscellaneous fic where it's always 1831 and everyone's always on their third drink.  Currently contains: </p><p>1. Les Amies des Fourmis (lady carpenter ant AU)</p><p>2. Courfeyrac adopts Actual Seabird Marius (Booby Pontmercy AU)</p><p>3. Homards AU<br/> </p><p>(Title from L'invitation au voyage, official poem of the beckoning hand of Amis Fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Les Amies des Fourmis: Hey This Chair You Gave Us for the Barricade Has Carpenter Ants

**Les Amies des Fourmis**

_Hey This Chair You Gave Us for the Barricade Has Carpenter Ants_

 

Although to be an ant meant to be constantly at work, they did not deny their society enrichment. In the twisting and dark galleries of the fourmilière the scents of long-dead ancestors had immortalized their aspirations.

Familiar as the scents of their comrades, those ancestors warned, inspired, and continued, after the death of their authors, to strive.

 The great scent-trails of Plato-Formicidae recalled the lost scent of Socratant, from a fourmilière of antiquity. These scents said that they were born from the wood in which they lived -- and therefore they loved it; with unutterable loyalty and would die for it and for all their sisters.  Their souls were wood as well, Socratant had said -- the queen had a soul of teak, the soldiers souls of oak, and the workers souls of elm.

In their private meetings, held among the tangled scents of ’93, Enjolrant defied that philosophy: “For we are all made from the same wood, do we not have the same qualities? And therefore if we are deserving according to our nature, do we not all deserve to swarm one another equally, all our ¾ sisters together, when our pheromones call us to the orgiastic ritual of mating?”

A few antennae twitched, signifying interest, at that.

“Brava,” said Courmyrac. “But what’s to be done?”

“Everything depends on the workers,” said Enjolrant. “We must talk to them.”

Grantaire let forth the unmistakable scent of skepticism, and Enjolrant rose, offended.

“Well? You have an objection, that is plain, let us have it.”

“The workers will not listen to you. The workers like the way you look and they like what you have to say, but they’ll never block off our narrow pre-Haussmannt galleries for you; Enjolrant! Be serious.”

Enjolrant raised her forelimbs. “Have you not heard,” she said. “I am _Ant-inoüs_ , farouche.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Original: http://archiveofourown.org/works/815894/chapters/1543468
> 
> 2\. And then: http://archiveofourown.org/works/800655/chapters/1528957
> 
> 3\. The myth of the metals thing took this form after I (shamefully, I know) googled the following in complete seriousness: "Do ants eat metal?" (answer: no. number of results: surprising).


	2. No moaning of the bar when I put out to sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Courfeyrac adopts Booby!Marius.

**No moaning of the bar when I put out to sea**

The bird had large blue feet, a wide and maniac stare, and an awkward way of moving that was not suited for land or sea. Its disposition was frantic. It struggled to wander off, but Courfeyrac set it on the table.

Joly, who had only just arrived, regarded the bird shortly, and said: “How diverting, a cormorant with a circulatory disorder, but what is its purpose?”

“Diverting,” Courfeyrac said, drawing himself from his chair and into an oratorical pose, “would be bringing the seabird — not a cormorant, but  _Sula aubreyi,_  the blue-footed booby — to the café to say, I have a new and exotic pet. A laugh would be for me to introduce him. Thus: Please make your acquaintance with Marius, inverted comically from Mamurius Veturius. But a true joke — one to send to the lists, to bet on, is also his purpose: I have through art I dare not reveal (for I hold the lady in great esteem) enrolled young Marius in the law school.”

“You haven’t,” said Joly.

“And yet, I have. He’ll be a  _plaignant_  in a month if he’s studious, and as I confidently expect him to be studious, we shall have our own man before the bar, though he is a perfect booby.”

Bahorel laughed, and as he was drinking wine, he choked. He recovered himself and drew a hand across his mouth. “You’ve gone through days of toil to lay the groundwork for ‘ _though he is a perfect booby_ ’? I applaud you, Courfeyrac, I drink  _salutaria_  to you. I venerate and revere you — with fearful worship. I couldn’t waste so much time if I labored at it, and I have trained in the very field this young booby is to enter! So I shout bravo, and I admit I am a dilettante where you should be a doctor of loafing.”

“Trained in the field,” said Courfeyrac, trying to pet the bird on the face and getting his gloves bitten continuously. “That is one thing. But only if you work at it every day, and combine practice with study, can you reach distinction. “

“Where did you even find this creature?”

“It could be said that he has been kidnapped,” said Courfeyrac, with speculative length to his words. “Or even stolen. But it would be affirmed that he once gave his address as the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes, and now he shares my lodging. Though I am positive that at some point he was refuged at Minturnae in Latium — I pray that you have not forgotten his name is Marius. “

“You can’t care for a seabird,” said Joly.

“The devil,” said Courfeyrac. “He is quite content. He does rather clutter the place with law books, but that’s the condition to which he’s promised himself and can’t be helped.”

The booby had at this point fixed his shocked stare on the map of France.

“He has quite an interest,” Bahorel observed.

“I should mention that his inclinations make him something of a Bonapartist,” said Courfeyrac. “There’s no doubt he’s gazing in rapture at the borders of empire. But then he’s in a good position, for I will indulge him in anything.”

“Except the appropriate diet,” Joly was heard to mutter.

Courfeyrac ignored him coldly, and went on: “For isn’t it just nearly that parody Combeferre sings of Alcest: If Caesar had given me glory and war, I should say take your scepter and chariot! _J’aime mieux mon oiseau de mer, ô gué! J’aime mieux mon oiseau de mer.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Sorry not sorry Tennyson
> 
> 2\. Canon and backstory stolen from Carmarthen's amazeballs O Sula Mio: http://archiveofourown.org/works/813972
> 
> 3\. Okay so the backstory on Sula aubreyi is that the blue footed booby needed to be discovered way earlier than Darwin (which wouldn't have been reported until like 1836?) so obviously the answer is that Stephen Maturin discovered them and named them after Aubrey. Every kudo on the planet to Carmarthen for Making it Work. 
> 
> 4\. Not sure how booby jokes and oiseau de mer can work in the same fic (two jokes in two different languages) so
> 
> (looks around furtively, backs toward the wall and crashes through the window)


	3. Les amis des homards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt is: Combeferre and foil of your choice, lobsters and mechanical flight, go!

“I dreamt of flying,” said Combeformard, when someone asked what he was contemplating. He made a gesture with his maxillipeds that described an upward motion. “I wonder if it is possible -- what art or mechanism could take us from the sea, from our caves and crevices? The world is vast.”

“To what good?” said Grantairephropsis. “Like that seabird you met on a rocky shoal one day said. Lobsters are admired by all. A gilded race, Titans who can conquer the world twice, by force and by dazzling, to be a lobster is to be sublime! And you wonder about flying. What noise.”

Grantairephropsis had only one chela, the other having been left in the sand some thirty years ago after a vicious duel. His carapace was a mottled brown; he was unbeautiful, but he was also rude -- anticipating the reaction he caused, this made him a cynic. If he believed in one thing, it was Chelaenjolras, who said often and beautifully that their own nature did not permit death — aside from accidents, to be a lobster was to be eternal. It was the same philosophy that had appealed to Combeformand so many years ago.

“I wonder about flying,” said Combeformard, “because I wonder about being free.”

They were grouped inside one of those undersea structures that appeared often enough. Seeing it, Chelaenjolras had let a current carry him inside to inspect, and the rest had followed.

As Grantairephropsis prepared his reply, they unexpectedly shifted, falling against the walls.

“Is this moving?” said Jolobster. “It is moving.”

The structure was being lifted from the sea floor, and accelerating. The floor was a hash of metal wires; their legs and maxilipeds fell through and they struggled to right themselves.

“Well,” said Grantairephropsis. “You have your flying mechanism! Now let us see if the result is that you shall have freedom!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. It was a lobster trap.


End file.
